Honey
by madeliine
Summary: The Baron loved Helena, who loved her mother, who loved intelligence, which loves logic. And logic is such a cold bedfellow, loving no one but itself. The story of the Grey Lady and Bloody Baron: you’ve never heard it like this before.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Harry Potter_ or any associated texts! All rights belong to JK Rowling and no profit is being made from this fiction. No real ghosts were harmed in the making of this fic. At risk of joining Miss Ravenclaw (_almost_ a Baroness) in a sword-induced death, I lightly suggest not reading this when playing with your sword. Because everyone owns swords these days—Godric was such a trendsetter.

He tried to speak to her, once. But that matter had been swiftly and quickly resolved, and for centuries, no further conversations took place between them.

His words were far from apologetic, but he had fleetingly mentioned love-

And it was then that she snapped, lashing out at him with all the force and anger she had pent up in her now-intangible, translucent and grey pathetic excuse of a body.

"Are you proud of yourself, Baron?" she had asked of him, once. When they were both alive and well, young and in love-

Unburdened and untainted.

He had raised an eyebrow in consideration, given her a slow smirk, a short nod, and that was that.

Not a word more.

_Are you proud of yourself, Baron?_

His answer would surely have changed by now-

He had, after all, managed to destroy the two things he treasured most: his life, and his greatest love.

Both had escaped his grasp in two fluid moments; with the same blade.

And wasn't that a shame? That they should both remain on the same plane of existence, even after death, destined to forever know each other and never forget.

_Forever_, she found, _was such a terribly long time._

_

* * *

_

Her mother once told her that she was born wailing, a screaming baby desperate for attention and in all ways needy for love.

She was baptized in jealousy, received the Eucharist with envy in her heart and said her bedtime prayers with a little green eyed monster casting curses on all who dared to cross her.

At the very least, she had never claimed to be someone she was not: lies never served her. As such, in being completely honest with herself, she came to the realization that she truly was a horribly sinful, jealous and spiteful person.

She was surely going straight to hell for never being satisfied. She bore her contempt the way lovers bore their hearts on their sleeves.

She was never satisfied: not with her mother, not with her suitors, and certainly not with herself.

But for all her words of grandeur and speeches of greatness, Helena found that she actually had quite an inferiority complex.

Where she never measured up to her mother's standards, Helena made sure that no man ever measured up to her own.

It was her little way of slapping her mother in the face, saying _'Ha! You can't force me to continue the Ravenclaw line. Your blood will die with me, and only your memory will remain. I win, you old cow._'

Helena took pleasure in what little victories she could manage.

And it wasn't in vain, either. Rowena Ravenclaw really was a cold bitch in all things concerning her daughter-

But more than anything else the old woman had wanted grandchildren. Not for doting upon or loving, of course. Rowena wanted grandchildren for the sake of continuing her legacy, so that one hundred years later, people would still dote upon and admire the famed Ravenclaw brilliance.

To the world, Salazar Slytherin may have been selfish.

It was Rowena Ravenclaw whom Helena condemned for her greed.

After all, for all of her mother's virtues, Helena had only inherited her flaws. In which case, who the better to name them than the daughter cursed with them?

* * *

"Come in," she called out, still lounging lazily in her chair with her book in hand. The knocking ceased and when the door creaked to an open, she looked up. "How can I help you?" she asked, her good mood slowly evaporating thanks to the man standing in her doorway.

"I wish to take you to lunch," the man replied, arms folded across his chest in an infuriating show of arrogance and self-confidence that rivaled only her own. "I will not be denied."

"Can't you see I'm busy, Baron? Go find some vapid serving girl to entertain yourself with."

Her words were frosty and her tone biting, but he was well-accustomed to her attitude and rather than run away with a proverbial tail tucked between his legs, he gave her a terribly conceited smirk.

"I'm sorry- was there an echo in here? I don't believe it was a request. Five minutes to get your things together, Helena, before I drag you off kicking and screaming." Without another word, he was gone, leaving her staring after him, contempt written all across her face.

She spent three of the five minutes considering her options.

There was some serious debate concerning whether or not she was going to make this at all easier for him by complying with his demands. Weighing her decisions, she finally sat her book down on the oak desk and left her chair in search of a hair brush.

With the remaining two minutes granted to her, she had successfully brushed the tangles out of her hair and changed into somewhat of a more respectable state of dress.

He was back right on time, as per usual- punctuality was a trait that she could perhaps admire if found in anyone else. In him it came off as awfully obnoxious.

"Well don't you look ravishing?" he remarked, touching a lock of her brown hair reminiscently.

She frowned. "Nervous compliments don't suit you," she told him snidely, crossing her arms tightly against her chest.

He laughed.

She bristled.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimed**.

Chapter two-

Once upon a time in a faraway land there lived a beautiful princess. Her castle was magical, and her father, the King, was a snake charmer who had fled the country long ago. Her mother was the perfect queen regent, beautiful and fairly austere.

Logical, calculating.

But Helena had never been a princess, and the closest to nobility she had ever truly been was as the fiancée of the Baron, who, by his mother was due to (if his third cousin's eldest son's daughter's husband's brother-in-law died) inherit a small share of the Plantagenet's Aquitaine duchies.

The only castle she had ever known was Hogwarts, and _that_ was a school. Scotland, too, was hardly a faraway land.

Her father never did resemble a king, but her mother certainly was. A man's head on a woman's body— shrewd, clever, _intelligent_.

There were times when Helena looked at her mother; _really_ looked at her, and decided that she loved the woman. There were times when Helena wanted nothing more than to make her mother proud, than to see her smile and catch the compliments that were unlikely to fall from her lips.

Instead, there was silence where Helena ached for laughter, and there was indifference where she looked for pride.

To be quite fair, Rowena had loved Helena. In her own, strange, foreign sort of way, Helena had been the light of her life. Helena: a product of her making— rather pretty and rather smart. Helena had never truly been a threat to Rowena, and therein, Rowena loved Helena.

For that very same reason, Helena hated her mother. In small children, there is the general paradox of loving one's parents unconditionally, no matter the pain inflicted.

In Helena, this paradox did not exist.

Only a few words could fully describe the relationship between mother and daughter, and Helena summed it up to _unhealthy_. Theirs was not a normal, nurturing relationship. It was one built on unnatural competition, and an ever-growing sense of loathing.

Rowena never took pride in her daughter's accomplishments, and Helena always viewed her mother as more of a rival than a parental figure.

For instance, the only reason that Helena never completely dismissed the Baron was because of her mother's own interest in the man. Of course, it wasn't a _romantic_ interest that Rowena had taken in the man, but Helena had always seen the world in shades of grey.

Whatever the draw that Rowena had to him may have been (whether it was intellectual compel, simple curiosity, or more), Helena disliked it.

It made things easier to know that the interest was unreturned, and the Baron had invested his _own_ interest in Helena, and if his eyes ever strayed to Rowena, it was only momentary, and those baby blues only ever lingered on the younger Ravenclaw.

But, Helena never liked to take chances, and so she worked very hard at never _completely_ turning the man away—

She was excellent at stringing men along. It was, she deduced, the one gift she had inherited from her mother dearest.

"I love you," he told her once, when he caught her wandering in the castle's corridors. It was a spur of the moment confession, proclaimed only months after having known her.

"No, you don't," she told him in a matter-of-factly voice, staring him down knowingly, despite his full six inches on her own measly five foot five inches. "You don't know me, so how could you love me?"

"I do," he persisted, "I've fallen in love with your smile—_when_ you smile, I mean—and I love the way you jump into conversations so passionately, the way your face lights up when you perfect a new charm, and your…" he faltered here, so uncharacteristic of his usual arrogance. "Your nose scrunches up when you're angry or irritated."

She rolled her eyes, unaffected. "_Please_," she retorted disgustedly, "_Falling_ _in love_ implies you can fall _out_ of love, my nose _does not_ scrunch, and you, Dearest, have been reading too many romances."

His face had hardened, and that was the last time he ever brought up his feelings with her, much to her satisfaction. She had no time to deal with an overgrown boy's silly ramblings— Helena Ravenclaw didn't have time to deal with nonsensical concepts like _love_.

Surprisingly though, his attempts at courting her never let up. He continued to (try to) woo her for the months to come, until their engagement. Of course, he didn't ask _her_ for her hand in marriage, he went straight to Rowena, who, of _course_, accepted.

And Helena found that she couldn't help but admire his shrewdness, however unprecedented it was. Obviously, the man knew how to get what he wanted.

_If_ Helena Ravenclaw were a princess, he would be the dragon guarding her bedchamber from wayward princes intent on finding brides. She was, for all intents and purposes, though she loathed to admit it, the virgin maiden forever trapped in a stone tower.

Dragons, of course, have a nasty tendency to eat virgins. You can't blame the monsters for acting the way they were born to act, though. It's like blaming a witch for being born with magic— preposterous and entirely unfounded.

This is where we pick up where we left off.

"Where are we going?" Helena asked him when he grabbed hold of her hand, leading her to the Forbidden Forest.

"I told you, we're going out to lunch," was his vague reply, and she found herself annoyed with his evasive answer.

"I refuse to go _anywhere_ with you until you tell me where we're headed!" she exclaimed, planting her feet to a halt. The Baron stopped too, a slight expression of aggravation crossing his face.

"_Helena_, act like an _adult_, will you? I had no idea I was marrying such an immature _child_, for Merlin's sake!" was his impatient response.

She didn't mean to take offense, she really didn't, but she couldn't help it. "I'm not a _child_!" she cried out, affronted. "I'm eighteen years old, thanks!"

His eyes rolled heavenwards in agitation and then settled back to her, and he spoke, sarcastic and mockingly. "Oh, I'm sorry, I meant my _eighteen year old_ childbride. Since _obviously_ your age isn't suited to my own maturity, do you think I should aim a bit higher? Like your mother, maybe? After all, I don't think she's been with any men since your father dearest left _all those years ag—_"

"STOP IT!" Helena shoved him back from her, and they stood a good five feet apart. She glowered at him, and her fingers twitched, as if to make a go for the wand that she had forgotten back at the castle. "Take me home." She said finally, after an eternity of silence, with the two of them just staring at each other.

He made a move forward, as if to embrace her. "I'm sorry—I didn't mean that, you _know_ I didn't mean it," he tried to apologize, but her head was still pounding with his words vibrating inside her skull.

"_I said_ I want to go _home_, Baron," she interrupted, her glare still intensely fixated on him.

Instead of arguing, he nodded wearily and began his trek back out of the forest, all semblance of playfulness gone from his demeanor.

She followed him quietly, her steps awkward and stiff, as though her body was protesting the walk back to the castle. However much she didn't want to go to lunch with the man, there was still a slight twinge of regret that strummed in her stomach.

It was a sickening sort of feeling, but her pride didn't allow her to apologize first. It was _his _fault, anyways, mentioning her mother. He had _no right_ to even joke about those things…

And when he brought her back to her room half an hour later, she closed the door in his face, no further words exchanged.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter three-

The air between them was tense for the weeks following, and when they passed each other, there was nothing but the occasional terse nod and cordial smile.

Helena was unused to the silence between them, and the realization startled her. She had grown used to his presence, and if she was anybody else, she might have said that she _missed_ his company. But since she _wasn't_ anyone else, she dismissed it as a preposterous idea, and reassured herself that it was perfectly normal to 'get used to somebody' when you spent an hour with them everyday, and it was even more understandable considering they were engaged.

"You and the Baron haven't been spending much time together," Rowena commented idly two days after the disastrous lunch. "Did you do something to scare him off, Sweetheart?"

"Of course not, mother," Helena sneered, "He's just having some difficulty deciding whether it's me or _you_ he wants to marry."

Rowena raised an eyebrow in disbelief, and stared at her daughter. "Oh, _do_ try and act a little more mature, would you Helena?"

"Oh, but mother, you're thirty nine. He has twenty six summers in the bag. I think it's perfectly grand that he's considering marrying the more mature Ravenclaw. He _did_ mention something about taking childbrides— _you're_ much more suited to his tastes," Helena gave Rowena an insincere, biting smile.

Rowena placed her quill to the desk and leaned back in her seat, giving her daughter her undivided attention.

"I raised a respectable, _mature_ young lady. Now, I'd appreciate if you'd act like it. Leave, Helena. I have paperwork to finish up. The students are due back to school in three months, and I still have yet to find a way to contact all the unlisted muggleborns in Hogwarts' jurisdiction." Rowena picked up the black quill and took out a clean sheet of parchment, effectively dismissing her daughter from her office.

"Magical signatures," Helena said, her hand pausing before the doorknob, and Rowena looked up, irritated, from her work.

"Excuse me?"

"Magical signatures," Helena explained, opening the door, "Can be mass-traced with a tracer spell. You can find the muggleborns that way."

Rowena shook her head exasperatedly.

"Tracer spells are unreliable, especially when performed on multiple people, Helena. You should know that from your fifth year wandwork studies."

The eighteen year old shrugged tersely, and left the room.

_It was only a suggestion_,she thought angrily.

"Helena." The voice came from her left, bouncing off the stone walls, but she knew who it was, and stopped, despite her senses telling her to continue forward and ignore the bastard. "I— can we talk?"

"I have nothing to say, and I think I made that pretty clear."

He showed no sign of being offended by her words, and continued to speak. "Well then, I wanted to apologize for my crass behavior the other day. It was out of line, and I should have held my tongue."

She turned on him, eyes blazing. "Held your tongue and _then what_, Baron? You just would have been _thinking _it— you can apologize all you like, but it doesn't change the fact that when you said it, you _meant _it." Her arms folded, and she took an offensive stance, absolutely prepared to trudge headfirst into another explosive argument.

"But I hurt you," He said simply, crossing his own arms as he stared at her through hooded eyes. He looked entirely too sure of himself, confident of her forgiveness. "I hate to hurt you, Dearest," and that was as sincere as he was going to get.

"I'm going to go prepare tea for my mother, since she's in a frightful mood." she said finally. "You can come with me to the kitchens if you'd like—but that doesn't mean I forgive you."

He nodded solemnly and fell into step with her.

Rowena liked her tea with two spoons of honey, one mint sprig and _'warm, not hot, Helena, it's not as though I'd enjoy having my tongue scalded, now is it?'_

Helena stirred quietly, three times counterclockwise with the Baron watching her methodical motions with a curious sort of look on his face.

"You know," he started conversationally when she was done, "I'm perfectly aware that it isn't anything like cooking, no matter how similar they may appear, but since I didn't attend Hogwarts the same time you did, I'm harboring the guess that you're rather excellent at Potions."

She looked up at him, startled. "It was my best class," she conceded slowly, and the way her eyes widened at his deduction of her skills showed that she was reassessing the man standing before her. "You could tell just by the way I prepared her tea?" she asked, a little ashamed by the curious tone she took.

He shrugged, and a lazy smile crept across his handsome features.

"It's the method," he revealed, "You're careful, very precise in the way you stir and the measurement of mint you picked up."

She leaned back against the counter, impressed despite herself. "You really _are_ smarter than I give you credit for. Tell me, what's your hidden talent, _Oh Great Fiancé of Mine_?"

He laughed (and it _was_ such an attractive laugh, she found) and began walking to the door, and she followed along with the tea in her hands.

"I'm not entirely sure whether I should be insulted or flattered," he admitted, opening the door to allow her to pass first, "_But_, while you may not expect it of me, I rather enjoy Transfiguration."

To be quite honest, she really _hadn't_ expected it. "But that's Godric's class," she said, surprised.

He gave her a charming smile. "So just because Professor Gryffindor teaches it, I'm not allowed be good at it?"

She blushed. "That's not what I meant—it's just that you're…"

"A Slytherin?" he completed the sentence for her, his amused smile turning into a full-fledged grin.

"_No,_" she said impatiently, "You're just someone I'd expected to be better at DADA—you just seem the type is all," she shrugged.

Never faltering in his long strides, he cast her a disbelieving glance.

"I do?"

"Yes," she answered simply.

"I'm terrible with defense," he admitted, and for what seemed like the hundredth time that night, he surprised her.

"Really?"

"Absolutely— my Patronus is a pathetic wisp of what I _think_ should be a wyvern… or a dragon, maybe. It's some beast, but it's such a sad sight that I truly can't place its full-form. Please don't tell anyone."

She stared at him in disbelief when they stopped in front of her mother's office. "I won't," she promised. "But, Baron, that's ridiculous!"

He shrugged again good-naturedly, but quickly turned the tables on her. "But I figure, why should I worry when I have my lovely, talented fiancée to protect me from our bed at night?" he leered.

"You're a pig," she shot back disgustedly (though she found that it was a little difficult to say it with as much vigor as she had intended), and opened the door.

His laughter followed her into her mother's domain as the door closed shut behind her.

"I brought you tea," she sat the cuppa down in front of the working witch.

"Thank you," Rowena said shortly, never once looking up from the parchment.

"I'm leaving now," Helena announced after a moment's silence, and Rowena waved her off, reaching over to take a sip of the tea before her.

Helena slipped out quietly into the hallway, and a small (_very_ miniscule) part of her hoped that the Baron was still there.

When she was faced with an empty corridor, she forced down the feeling of disappointment that welled up inside of her and walked back to her room.

_Don't be ridiculous, Helena_, she told herself. _Spending so much time with him really is getting to your head._


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four-

Over the next few weeks, Helena discovered that love was a cruel companion. It haunted her in her sleep, crept up her spine like cold fingers and wrangled its way into her bed sheets with a lustful passion. Love was not kind, love was not merciful.

This was not to say, of course, that Helena was _in love_. She loved knowledge, maybe. She loved life, maybe, but she never loved men.

"I haven't seen you in a while," Helena struggled to keep her voice level, to not sound too hopeful or too eager. "Have you been busy?"

She could not, however, stop the accusing tone that had entered her voice.

The Baron gave her a wry smile and shrugged. "I'm trying to manage my father's estates, and after his death, everything's a little chaotic."

Helena looked at him, startled. "Your father died?"

_She didn't know him. How could she grow to love him?_

"It's not important, really," the Baron told her uncaringly, dismissively. And Helena had the decency to not appear judging.

"You didn't have a good relationship," she stated it as a fact, but she was hardly in a position to make any snide commentary.

"We had a wonderful relationship," he told her a little coldly, but his voice quickly warmed up, and she pushed his tone to the back of her mind. "What have you been up to?"

She shrugged uncomfortably. "Studying."

"Your mother's doing," he teased, and she was just as surprised as he was to find a slow, easy-going smile slide across her face.

"What my mother has and hasn't been _doing _ is entirely up to her, and I'd rather not think on it," she shot back.

Banter?

Since when had they been comfortable enough around each other to exchange playful banter? Certainly not a year ago. Certainly not a week ago.

He kissed her, and it was warm and welcoming and loving and wonderful.

She pushed him away.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded, breathing harshly, eyes wide.

Foolish, silly, _handsome_ man-

"I thought I had already made it quite clear," he breathed, and leaned down to continue where they left off.

And it couldn't hurt to keep kissing him for a few more seconds, because they _were_ to be married, and wasn't this something wedded couples did?

"Oh, Baron, you're back!" Rowena's voice cut through the air like an axe, and the lip-locked pair broke apart as though jinxed. "How wonderful- and how did the funeral proceedings go?"

Helena watched her mother interact with her fiancé through hooded eyes, stepping back to survey the scene. The Baron's face was red in embarrassment, though Rowena didn't seem to notice as she continued to airily ask him questions.

There must have been minutes that rushed passed in that conversation, but when the words were exchanged, the Baron had just enough time to throw her an apologetic glance before departing, leaving her alone in the corridors with her mother.

Rowena stared at her daughter coolly.

"I expect you to be able to control your lust, Helena," she reprimanded the younger Ravenclaw with a stern look, and Helena shrugged.

"It's not as though the Baron and I haven't already been sharing a bed for months, now," she told her mother in all-seriousness, though it certainly wasn't true. As though she'd ever voluntarily let that man get near her, let alone get her in bed.

Not that she minded his presence all that much anymore or his kisses (his _kisses!)_, but-

_Ridiculous, Helena_, she chided herself.

Rowena's jaw clenched in a disapproving manner all the same. "I'd had hoped I taught you restraint, but you seem to have inherited your father's appetites."

Helena shot her mother a cruel grin, "Have I? I can't imagine _why_ his appetites would stray, especially when he had _you_ to warm his bed," she sneered, and exited the direction she saw the Baron walk in.

And what she said wasn't nice at all, and it wasn't at all appropriate or respectable, or even provoked_._ But it was satisfying.

Adrenaline and no small amount of lust burned through her veins like fire as she searched for the Baron.

Quickly, however, she was disappointed to find him gone without any trace of having walked that way at all-

And Helena stopped looking for him, and stared wearily down the hallway, unsure of where to go from there.

"Looking for me?"

The voice came from her left, and she spun around, eyes darting left and right to catch some outline of the man speaking.

"Where are you?" she asked, brows furrowed in a look of irritation. "Come out."

She heard a gentle whoosh, and the Baron slowly appeared, pulling a shimmering material away from his body. Helena stared.

"How did you do that?" she asked finally, cautious and a little distrusting.

The Baron gave her his charming grin and folded the fabric completely.

"I like to call it my cloak of invisibility; it's something my brother Ignotus lent me a while back- I'd like to think I'm keeping it safe for him while he sorts out his affairs, but everyone knows he's the one doing me the favor," he laughed.

"What do you need it for?" she questioned curiously, and reached out to touch it from where it hung off his arm.

It had a heavy satiny texture to it; the way she thought a cloud would taste, or feel under her fingertips.

"That's incredible," she murmured as she tucked her fingers under the fabric, watching them disappear into thin air.

"It is, and I have some business I'd like to take care of rather discreetly, and this cloak will allow me to do just that," he said with a proud smile, stroking the fabric lovingly.

"I didn't know you had a brother," she said carefully, lest she tread on rocky territory.

"Two, actually," he said with a wry smile. "I'm the middle child."

"Oh," Helena said softly, and he turned his eyes to her again.

"Was there something you wanted?"

"Ummm… No," she lied quickly looking away from his gaze, and he laughed.

"You want me," he stated it as a fact, and the blush that came over her face had little to do with embarrassment or want.

"Of course not!" she denied indignantly, and he grinned arrogantly.

"You want _more_," he continued, "Well, Helena, all you had to do was _ask_ and I'd _love_ to help you out."

"You're loathsome!" she huffed, crossing her arms. "I would never in a million _years_ ask for your touch."

"So you'd want it in silence? Asking is much easier, my dear, I'm apt to comply that way-"

"I wouldn't never in a million years _want_ your touch!" she amended furiously, and he laughed.

"Want _this_?" he asked, touching the small of her back. "Or _this_, perhaps?" he placed his hand behind her neck. "_This_?" his lips on hers.

"_Never_," she declared, pushing him away.

"Of course not," he said, but the smug look in his eyes said differently.

"Don't delude yourself into thinking this is anything but an arranged marriage," she snapped, and he leaned back a little, crossing his arms across his chest.

"Arranged or not, marital benefits don't depend on love. I will have you, Ravenclaw," he told her in a low voice, touching the slant of her jaw gently. It wasn't romantic, or nice, or chivalrous.

But it was true.

"You're disgusting," she hissed, and he kissed her again.

She let him.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter five; interlude-

The next few weeks passed by lovely-like, with her mother holed up in her office doing Merlin-knows-what and the Baron accompanying her every hour of the day she wasn't sleeping. Even then, he'd take her to her bed chamber and kiss her at the door, and she'd kiss him back before _pushing_ him back, and he'd laugh with amusement, as though he knew the dangerous thoughts racing through her head and the dangerous heat rushing southwards down her skin.

It was lovely-like.

Lovely-like: not quite _lovely_ because things were still regrettably complicated, and she still regrettably hated that she had no choice in marrying him, but it was close to lovely. She didn't hate him, and she didn't hate his kisses or his hands on her hips, or his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her thighs. Those were things she enjoyed, relished in, even.

But this lust made her nervous, and sometimes, fingers of doubt would crawl up her spine, whispering soft nothings into her ears when the Baron wasn't around to chase them away.

She hated the fleeting moments between getting into bed and actually falling asleep: those were the moments the doubts came, like Cornish pixies with sharp-toothed smiles, all ripping away at the sense of serenity that the Baron had helped to build up.

_He doesn't love you._

_Your mother. He wants your mother, not you—never you, why you?_

Because he looked at her mother much the same way he looked at her, with a roguish grin and wonderful eyes that sparkled wonderfully when faced with a wonderful challenge.

And Rowena was such a wonderful challenge.

So Helena kept kissing him back and pushing him back, and those wonderful eyes of his danced merrily each night she frowned at him with a _"_Good_night_, Baron, I do think you've overstayed your welcome."

—as though he knew that one of these days, she wouldn't be pushing him away.


End file.
